Light Modifiers for an Old Hollywood Look | Inside Fashion and Beauty Photography with Lindsay Adler

There is something timeless about Old Hollywood imagery. When you photograph your subjects with the same quality of light and styling as the Golden Age of Hollywood, they instantly are imbued with a feeling of elegance and class.

A study of Old Hollywood lighting techniques will reveal that the masters were generally using Tungsten hot lights much like
Mole Richardsons. Today, however, we are more likely to use studio strobes and constant LED light sources.

In this video, I will take you through my three favorite light modifiers when emulating the Old Hollywood look. If you’d like to go a lot more in-depth into this concept, be sure to check out my lighting recipe guide with 20+ setups! http://lindsayadler.photo/oldhollywood

These three light modifiers are Fresnel, Optical Spot, and Magnum Reflector. Let’s take a look!

#1 Fresnel: Fresnel modifiers focus light and were extremely common in glamour portraits of the 1930/s40s movie studios. Hurrell commonly used this modifier (with a lens similar to what is found in lighthouses) in his portraits for a hard yet smooth quality of light. Today’s version of this modifier is the Nanlite Fresnel attachment for the Nanlite Forza 500. When combined with several Nanlite Pavotubes for hair lights, you can see that even using modern LED light sources we can achieve a striking look of the Old Hollywood masters.

#2 Optical Spot: An Optical Spot uses a lens to create a crisp quality of light with very defined edges. Another benefit of the Westcott Optical Spot is that you can create a spotlight effect on your subject or the background. If you study Horst and Hurrell, at times you will see oval-shaped highlights on the background to create visual interest. While they were using other spotlight modifiers, our modern-day equivalent is an optical spot. In this setup, I used a Westcott Optical Spot on the background (for the oval-shaped highlight) as well as on the face to create a beautiful, crisp light source.

#3 Magnum Reflector: A Magnum reflector is a hard light modifier with a finish that gives a slightly smoother result to the skin. To decrease the specularity even more you can add a soft (diffusion) to the front of the modifier. At Magnum reflector is similar to a light (focusing or fixed focus scoop) used in Old Hollywood setups. Using just this single light modifier with the right set (here are the curtains) helps to achieve that timeless look with just a simple set.

Of course, you can light like Old Hollywood but until you have the styling, hair, and makeup right, you won’t be able to believable achieve the look. All of the elements must work together!

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✘ PRODUCTS USED:

Westcott Optical Spot
https://adorama.rfvk.net/GjqeJn

Canon R5
https://adorama.rfvk.net/JxzdE

Canon RF 85mm 1.2
https://adorama.rfvk.net/Rk5Qy

Canon RF 70-200mm 2.8
https://adorama.rfvk.net/Jrr6q2

Profoto D2
https://adorama.rfvk.net/qvB7y

Profoto Magnum Reflector
https://adorama.rfvk.net/mvmbO

Westcott Optical Spot
https://adorama.rfvk.net/GjqeJn

Profoto 1x4ft Strip Softbox
https://adorama.rfvk.net/4AdQn

Nanlite Forza 500
https://adorama.rfvk.net/6bA0yb

Nanlite Fresnel
https://adorama.rfvk.net/LPgXK3

Nanlite Pavotubes
https://www.adorama.com/nnpt30x.html
https://adorama.rfvk.net/JrVx9q

#lightmodifiers #portraitlighting #adorama

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Photographer: Lindsay Adler
http://learnwithlindsay.com

Videographer - Samuel Bouret
  / samuelbouret  

Makeup: Joanne Gair
Hair: Linh Nguyen
Styling: Raytell Bridges

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THANKS SO MUCH FOR WATCHING!